Making Connections

The general pattern for winter weather forecasts in Washington, DC is as follows:

1. Forecast snow.
2. Predict that it will be the biggest storm in a decade, liable to keep everyone at home for days and make it impossible to get anywhere or do anything.
3. Send broadcasters to report on every single snowflake that falls on or near the District.
4. Make it sound like the world is coming to an end once the first quarter-inch is on the ground.
5. Pretend nothing was ever mentioned about a snowstorm once the snow stops after reaching a total accumulation of approximately half an inch.

As a result, DC Metro area residents have taken to rolling their eyes at all reports of incoming winter weather and sarcastically refer to forecast snowstorms as "Snowpocalypse [insert current year here]."

This year, however, Snowpocalypse 2009 actually arrived (on December 18th/19th - I know, I'm very late and have been very bad about posting lately) and sent the area into a frenzy with about 16 inches of snow in less than 24 hours. Which happened to be the same 24 hour period in which I was attempting to leave the area to visit my parents for a couple of weeks.

The snow started Friday evening, but it was drifting down so slowly and looked so pretty that I wasn't worried. Until I tried to schedule a pick-up for my 7:00am flight on Saturday and was told by every cab company in Arlington, VA that they weren't accepting reservations for Saturday - I would have to call as soon as I was ready in the morning and take my chances. Okay, so the cab companies were spooked. No big deal, they were overreacting, just like the weather forecasters, right?

Wrong. I woke up to a terrible scraping noise at 3:00am and looked out my window. A pick-up truck with a plow attached to its grille was clearing my building's parking lot of the four or five inches of snow that had accumulated. (Yes, for normal people in places that acknowledge that they get winter weather, that amount of snow is nothing to worry about. In DC, which - when it comes to weather and food, at least - is adamant that it's Southern, two inches is enough to shut down the streets and send people into a panic.) Oh good, I thought, the city was (inexplicably) starting with my parking lot, but then they'd start plowing the streets and everything would be fine in a couple of hours. I got up a little early and got ready to leave, spent 10 minutes on hold with a cab company and, at 4:50, was given a pick-up time in 30 minutes. A little long for a company whose drivers often park/idle next to my building at night, but no big deal.

By 5:30, I was worried. No cab yet, no call from the company telling me when the cab was coming and their lines were now so jammed I couldn't get anything but a busy signal. I took all of my stuff downstairs (Did I mention that my cat, a total stranger to air travel, was included in my luggage?) and flinched when I looked outside. The wind had picked up since I'd gotten out of bed, the snow was coming down harder and it was quite clear that the streets had not been plowed. Another resident was pacing around the lobby, trying to get through to any cab company while the security guard on duty looked up bus schedules for him. I offered to share my cab, if it ever arrived, and paced in the opposite direction, on hold with the cab company again.

By 5:50, my partner in panic (his flight was also at 7:00) had decided to give either a bus or one of the nearby hotels' shuttles a try. I was ready to walk at that point - DCA is literally down the street from my apartment, 1.7 miles by car according to Google maps - but I had no idea what Nala's tolerance for cold might be and I didn't want to risk giving her hypothermia by spending more than a couple of minutes either walking or waiting for a bus in the snow. I promised my fellow traveler that when (if) the cab showed up, we'd circle the block to look for him.

Shortly after he left, a woman came downstairs headed for the J.Crew sale at the nearby mall, which apparently started at 6:00. She was debating driving or walking and I was desperate enough at that point to offer her $20 to drive me to the airport. She decided she'd rather avoid driving in the snow and opted to walk to the mall.

Another resident pulled into the lot just after 6:00 and I briefly debated physically throwing myself in front of his Jeep and begging for a ride (without letting go of my cell phone, of course - I was still on hold with the cab company) before deciding it was on the edge of too late anyway. He came in as I was debating running back upstairs to call the airline from my land line to ask about a later flight, and the security guard - who had been on hold with another cab company for about half an hour at that point - asked if he would consider driving me to the airport, since she knew him. He was clearly reluctant, having just finished work and a long, snowy drive home, but when he looked at me his expression wavered (I have no idea what my face looked like, but it was probably painful to look at) and I pressed my momentary advantage, launching into a series of - polite, I hope - pleas interspersed with explanations of why I wasn't already outside dragging my luggage through the snow.

This gentleman turned out to be the nicest person on the face of the planet and said he'd drop his work gear upstairs and come back down to drive me to the airport. We left at 6:15, with me thanking him profusely approximately every 12 seconds.

It took Mr. NPE (Nicest Person Ever) and I 15 minutes to drive that 1.7 miles, and we only saw one cab (not from the cab company I was waiting for, which, incidentally, never did call to tell me they weren't coming), trying very hard not to slide backward down the ramp into the airport. Everything else on the road was SUVs. After thanking him one last time (okay, maybe it was more like six last times), I gave Mr. NPE my apartment number for anything he might need in the future - cereal, a cup of sugar, a kidney - and dashed into the terminal at 6:30, crossing my fingers and trying not to jostle Nala.

I got checked in with no trouble thanks to the minuscule size of Reagan National and at 6:45 tore off in the direction of the escalators and the security line, which turned out not to be a line at all, thanks again to the tiny size of DCA and the fact that a number of people were having the same trouble I had getting to the airport. (And, I found out later, to the fact that Delta had canceled all its flights the night before.) I scooped up a confused and fairly terrified Nala and clung to her for dear life while TSA ran her carrier through security, coaxed her back inside, grabbed a bottle of water and pelted down the concourse to my gate, stopping just long enough to hand my boarding pass to the gate agent, who was in the process of opening up all the unclaimed seats on the flight to stand-by passengers.

Fortunately, the woman sitting on the aisle in my row liked cats and cooed over Nala as much as the flight attendants had while I got her situated under the seat and we exchanged "getting to the airport" stories. One of the stand-by passengers claimed the seat between us and joined the conversation. While we laughed with relief over our good fortune in having made it onto a plane that was apparently going to take off, the stand-by passenger looked thoughtfully at Nala and said, "You know, I think I was on a shuttle with one of your neighbors. This guy was trying to get the driver to go past this apartment building because there was a woman there who couldn't make it to the shuttle because she couldn't take her cat outside. He even offered the driver $15, but he couldn't deviate from his route." My partner in panic hadn't forgotten me!

Neither of my seatmates nor I had eaten breakfast, but once we had been de-iced, anti-iced and cleared for take-off, they each bought snack boxes (which, when it came my turn to ask for one, turned out to have been the last two on the plane) and our row had a mini-party with them and the magazines we'd all brought. In between snatches of sleep, it was definitely the most fun I've had on a plane since high school Model UN trips. And although we took off an hour and a half late (de-icing takes a while, and before that the taxiway had to be plowed), we arrived a mere 27 minutes behind schedule.

That Saturday started with the potential to be the worst day in recent memory, but through the kindness, generosity and good humor of strangers, it turned out to be one of the best. Nala and I will definitely be baking a batch of "thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" brownies for Mr. NPE when we get back to DC. And I'll be happily paying forward all that good cheer with every stranger I meet for a long time to come.